There are many systems developed to deliver items from one source or a distribution point to another location including data and information distributions systems. More notable of the prior art delivery systems are the Government Mail systems, Private Mail Systems such as Fed EX and UPS and in more recent years the Electronic Fax machines (such as U.S. Pat. No. 4,837,797) and the many E-Mail services evolving on the Internet and Intranets.
Also, the scheduled broadcast networks, such as Radio, television, telephone, and wireless networks that connect security and other automated equipment to computer systems have been around for years. The scheduled broadcast networks deliver data.
These legacy scheduled data delivery systems, such as Broadcast and cable TV systems, were designed for specialized equipment and delivered audio/video or data to either a public audience with special receiver equipment or a very limited audience with special equipment. For example, stock market quotes have been delivered to special pieces of equipment tuned into a local FM radio station and recently a company called “Netpliance” built a special piece of equipment that plugs into a persons phone line (like a fax machine) and delivers E-mail and other such information several times a day.
Over the last five years many of the legacy scheduled delivery systems converted over to Internet storage and delivery systems. More recently, public broadcast station content has been converted to Internet protocol for delivery to person's computers that tune into a Website broadcast station or Cable network such as CNN.com or CNN Channel 34 for example.
Even more recently, Internet Service Providers such as AOL have offered Instant message service that allows a new message to be delivered in real time to another persons computer that is connected to their service rather than just sending the message to the individuals E-Mail Box. That is, the Instant message service keeps track of who is signed up for the service and will send a message directly between several people signed up for the instant message service when they are connected to the service at the same time. This is kind of like a special party line chat room. However, none of these services send messages to a users database automatically so that the user can check their messages at anytime without having to connect up to some service provider to get what is in their service provider mail box. Currently, the network data services deliver only to a users E-Mail or Storage box located on the Internet or Intranet servers, or to a user's communication device, such as a cell phone or beeper.
The communication message deliver services (Beepers, Faxes, E-mail etc) that send messages or phone numbers have been around for years but only deliver to the user's communication device (or mail boxes stored on a remote server). The user has little or no involvement in determining what is delivered or how the data is delivered. For example in Los Angeles, a user can subscribe to a service that beeps the user's communication device when a live car chase is on TV. The service will beep you with the channel information for a fixed amount of money per month. The service can also beep the user's communication device when the user's stock has changed price.
Although there are now millions of databases available on the Internet, users still have to sort through the databases and select what the user's want to download or buy or watch the data in real time. Adding to the difficulties, the data storage services store the data in a single format (normally in one of the accepted browser formats) and users must figure out how to retrieve the data and convert the data to a format that fits their needs. In other words, the user must build a special data fetch engine for each source of data that the user needs at the user's computer.
Note the Internet/Intranet network systems themselves maintain IP address databases that must be maintained and synchronized. The IP address databases are maintained and synchronized by the routers and server synchronization programs and do not offer data delivery to Users. That is, the IP address databases are maintained and synchronized by automatic host-to-host database manager programs residing on the same network system (such as the many internal computer engines that keep local computer routines synchronized automatically to the correct time or other common platform parameters as required).
Applications such as Lotus, Excel, WordPerfect, MS Word, Access, and even more important the newer useful programs such as Quicken notebook and DacEasy or Peachtree Accounting programs or TurboTax have file or record Import/Export features that require the data to conform to some ODBC standard or the application file or record communication standards built into the programs. The most useful of these programs have “manual tools” to help import selected portions of files (records e.g. MS Word lets users “manually merge” address data records from one program database into a letter or a label generating program of another application). These export/import features were incorporated into application programs many years ago because of competition. The available methods require the user to build a special program to retrieve the data (a fetch engine) or to deliver the data (a delivery engine) each time the user wants to transfer data from one program to another as done with the “tools macros” available in some of the more popular application programs.
These tool macros still require the user to learn how to use the tool and follow the instructions each time the user wants to import or export a file or record. Even though Windows software has provided menus designed to help the programmer accomplish file and record transfer tasks, Windows programs do not have an application module for scheduled specific data delivery or data reception built into their programs where the user specifies the format for example.
Report generators are prevalent in accounting and other application programs. The report generators operate as a special data base application program building a special database using a special report generating fetch engine but not a delivery engine. The report generators make it easy for user computer developers to specify the data or record they want (not specify a file but specify a piece of a file or record), in the form they want it (ASCII, html, excel, etc.), placed where they want the data to go, and to retrieve the data automatically, when they want it delivered. The report generator requires the user or the user's program to actuate the report generator each time data is to be determined.
There are some programs currently built to synchronize files (bring all the files up to the most current version) used for portable computers, PDA's and client computers hooked up to networks. Also there are a few companion application programs (applications developed by the same developer) such as Quicken Books and Turbo Tax programs developed by the same company that will let the user choose to import some data from one of the programs to the other. These programs import (data predetermined by the programmer not the user) from one program to another (e.g. from the Quicken Books database to the Turbo Tax program database) and let the user decide if the user wants to use the imported data.
Also there are many programs now that will let you retrieve updates with the latest software versions if you sign up for such a service, especially computer operating system programs running on Windows Platforms. Such programs are a convenience to the software developer but hardly a convenience for the software owner. These version update programs, detect your current program version and provide an update automatically. The version update programs are just another form of synchronization programs not data delivery services. For example, AOL provides their program version updates when you try to log off from their service.
Search engines used by websites for mining data for a user exist. Such search engines are referred to in the art as agents, spiders or bots, for example. In addition, combinations of search engine and file transfer programs exist for use with downloading music from websites on the internet. Two such programs are provided under the tradenames Napster and Guntella.